The present invention relates to conveyors for bottles and like articles, and more particularly to apparatus for stabilizing such articles during transport.
A turret is a well know device for conveying bottles in a circular path for imprinting or other processing. Such turrets are an integral part of the heat transfer decorators described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,064,714; 3,079,979; 3,261,734; 3,709,755; 3,741,373; and 4,214,937. Typically such turrets receive articles from and discharge them to underlying conveyor belts. A common difficulty in such bottle transport apparatus is the instability of articles transferred from a turret to a conveyor belt, due in part to a difference between the transport speeds of these devices. This problem is particularly acute in the case of tall, narrow articles, and at high transport speeds.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the invention to provide a device for stabilizing bottles and other articles during transport. A related object is the prevention of bottle toppling during interchange between bottle transport devices.
Another object of the invention is to facilitate the handling of bottles of various shapes and sizes. In particular the apparatus of the invention is useful in the transport of tall, narrow articles.
A further object of the invention is to facilitate the high speed transport of bottles.